


it's a cold, cold place in the arms of a thief

by AngelicSentinel



Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Introspection, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-12-01 21:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11494776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelicSentinel/pseuds/AngelicSentinel
Summary: “'…leave me alone but just don’t leave me here, all right?'”





	1. Chapter 1

Say what you want to about Nakamori Aoko. She’s not stupid, you know. You don’t just grow up with someone and not be able to put two and two together.

It’s easy enough to trace the curve, if you know Kaito as intimately as she does. She can pinpoint almost to the day when he started his career as an international thief.

She also knows the exact day it became serious, when it became a duty more than a hobby. 

Like the time lapse of a painting, she sees the shadows become shapes, the blurs take definition, the edges become hard.

No, Aoko is not stupid. Not when she went out of her way to give him an alibi. That’s not to say how she has any idea how he left the amusement park and came back so quickly, but well. She has no idea how he does half his tricks either, and that’s never really stopped her before.

She’s been around him long enough to know them, and know the Kid uses the same ones. He’s never told her he is Phantom Thief 1412, but then, he’s never had to. It’s obvious to someone who knows him as well as she does. 

So why does she hate the Kaitou Kid?

Because she has a front-row seat to the destruction the phantom thief wreaks on Kaito. 

Because it has changed him, and not always for the better. 

Because he has shadows in his eyes now, and jumps at loud noises sometimes, if he can’t catch himself in time. It’s that grin, cracked and faded where it was once genuine. 

It’s eight years of Kaitou Kid heists without an end in sight. 

It’s she asked him out, and he took a year to say yes.

It’s the way he refuses to let her help him with his heists, the way he keeps them to himself, guarded like a mistress from a jealous lover

It’s her swollen belly, arguments long and loud into the night about bringing children into this world, his frantic refusal to even consider the notion until she wore him down.  

It’s the sympathetic glances she gets from the other women at the office, but that’s okay. They don’t know what she knows. 

Aoko doesn’t care the world sees her as an oblivious wife. Especially the ones she went to school with. 

Kaito comes home late, or not at all, sometimes, and that’s a mark against her, too. For not being a good enough wife for him. For letting him stray.

But when he comes in late at night, bullet wound in his shoulder or a knife-cut down his arm, Aoko says nothing. She pulls out the first aid kit, keeps her face down so Kaito doesn’t see the tears in her eyes, and helps him dress his wounds. He looks pathetically grateful, those nights, for her silence, the silence she’s kept for years. Her lack of questions.

She’s never demanded the truth from him, not even once. Not even on those long nights where she harbours doubt, waiting alone until the dawn. 

He’ll crawl in bed in disguise, sometimes, and just hold her.  He’ll sob quietly into her neck as she pretends to be asleep. Sometimes he wants a more physical comfort, and that’s okay, too. The disguises aren’t a barrier. 

Sometimes Kaito sheds his nine-to-five suit and puts on a wig, make-up and trendy, fashionable clothing, looking more beautiful and more elegant than Aoko could ever hope to be. They hold hands, whisper secrets (all except the biggest one.) Sometimes that follows them into the bedroom, too. 

Aoko doesn’t mind. She wonders sometimes, if that blind trust in him is what leads him to trust her so fully. He never questions her hours, her friends, how she spends their money, where she goes. 

There are times he just stares at her, watching. He’ll open his mouth as if to say something, then falter. She’ll ask, and he’ll answer nothing. 

She doesn’t hate him because he’s human. 

She hates the idea of what he is. The fact he feels he can’t tell her. What it has done to him. But even then she doesn’t push. 

She could never hate him, not Kaito himself; it’s just not in her nature. 

But she wonders if he knows that. 

So Aoko tries to show him, tries to be there for him as much as she can.

And oh, but he tries for her. He _tries_ so hard. It takes her breath away, how dedicated he is, in his own way. She feels loved, feels cherished, feels wanted and needed.

But he doesn’t tell her. 

It’s a cold place, warmth taken by his duty, what he feels he needs to do. 

Aoko watches him break day by day, fits the pieces back together as best she can, and waits for the day he feels like he can tell her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **OTP prompt 26:** I found you gasping for air.

It’s the whimpering that wakes Aoko. Her brain is still fogged with sleep; it takes her a moment to realize what’s going on. “Kaito?” she ventures, turning in the bed.

He doesn’t answer. 

Kaito’s sitting up. All she sees is his back. The lines of his shoulders are tense, and sweat drips down, running in cold lines as he rocks back and forth, gasping for air. The sight wakes her up immediately, she sits up, adjusting the straps of her nightgown, and crawls to his side. Aoko reaches out, touching his shoulder tentatively. He jerks, stopping his movement, seemingly unaware of anything but her touch, his eyes staring out into nothing, and then starts rocking again.

A flashback. From a nightmare?

Outside, she hears it again. The crackle boom pop of fireworks going off. Kaito jumps, his whimpering growing louder, and he shakes his head violently.

No. Not from a nightmare. Aoko lets out a sigh; she hates this time of year. Summer festivals once were a time of joy and excitement. Not anymore. Not for what they do to Kaito these days. Certain things leave scars, and fireworks sound too much like gunshots for any of them to be comfortable with them.

She wraps her arms around him, pulling him against her chest, wiping the tears from his eyes. They rock together, her hands stroking his hair. Outside, the night is lit up by a myriad of colors, bright festive lights, completely unconscious of what they’re doing to him. Such pretty, violent, destructive things.

Aoko frowns. There weren’t any shows scheduled this week, otherwise they would have found somewhere to be for a few days. She’ll have to bring it up with the council, give them a stern talking to. He’s fine with a little warning, but not like this. Not with a show at midnight, waking them both out of restless sleep.  

A long way from from the boy who set illegal fireworks for her birthday. She can’t remember if Jii was licensed for class three explosives or not.  

They rock together, Aoko whispering soothing nonsense words in his ear, the pop of the fireworks a harmony with Kaito’s choked gasps as he struggles to get himself under control. Each bang has him burrowing further into her embrace. It embarrasses him, she knows, but there’s no helping it. And it’s not something to be embarrassed about, but he has his pride.

“You’re here,” she says. “You’re here with me,” she says to him. “Kaito, you’re safe, I’ve got you.” It’s her voice more than her words that help, so she makes sure to keep speaking. “I’ve got you,” she repeats because there is nothing more she can really say, nothing else she can do but let him know she’s here for him. She breathes slow, deep and easy, keeps herself still.

Kaito described it to her once, in a dark and cold moment, what it feels like. How it feels to be cast back into the middle of the moment where it happened, like no time passed at all. It feels like drowning. Like the icy cold fingers of a kappa dragging you under, under, under.

It feels like drowning. Heart racing, you can’t breathe. You can’t even think. Lke a heart attack, like your lungs exploding, like falling off a cliff with hard ground waiting below, like a hundred thousand things that don’t even come close to explaining how it really feels.  

Or like a thousand ants crawling over your skin, all at once, eating you alive, killing you piece by piece.  

And so she anchors him until he makes it back to himself, till his breathing calms and his heart rate slows. It helps that the show outside has finished, that the loud bangs have ceased for a time. Aoko just holds him as he lays there, breathes with him, matching his breaths so they’re breathing as one.

“Aoko,” he says.

“Kaito?” she replies, hand still cradling his cheek. “You with me?” She sweeps her thumb over the curve.

“Yeah. I just,” he trails off.

“Yeah,” Aoko says. There’s no need for explanations.  

Outside, a second volley of fireworks lights up the sky, filling the dark night with brilliant color. Kaito takes a deep shuddering breath, shifts out of her arms and leans against the back of the bed.  He gestures towards himself, arms wide, and Aoko follows gladly, climbing into his lap. She leans her head against his chest as he buries his face in her hair and wraps his arms around her tightly. He takes a deep breath.

“Did I scare you?” he asks finally, murmuring against her hair.

“No,” she says. Two years into their marriage and nights like this have become commonplace, but it’s not the long nights or the lack of sleep that she regrets. It’s that he even experiences them at all. And some ember of the burning hatred she had for Kid still rests in her heart as resentment against the circumstances that made him think Kid was the answer.

Kaito made his choices, as Aoko has made hers, but she doesn’t think anything he could ever do would ever make her hate him.

Least of all something he has no control over. Those are the nights that forged him into the man he is today, and she can’t even find it in herself to hate those. Because in the end, they’d given him to her, this thief that stole her heart.

They hurt one another sometimes, and argue. But they talk things out, and compromise, and love, too.

Kaito walks his fingers down her side until he reaches her hand and links their fingers together. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“I know, she says.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I don’t mind.” It’s such a small thing to be there for him. And even though he hadn’t always been there for her at the beginning, he’d _tried_ , and if that wasn’t enough, he had more than made up for it later. She almost giggles, thinking of it. Oh yes. He’d more than made up for it.

“I know,” Kaito says. “Thank you.”

And they lay down together, and he pulls her close, and they fall to sleep.


End file.
